Mandi Woodruff-Santos, YF Contributor, Cohost of Brown Ambition Podcast, joins Yahoo Finance to discuss the gender pay gap.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: The gender gap in pay-- it's remained relatively stable in the US over the past 15 years or so. Actually, in 2020, women earned 84% of what men earned. That's according to a Pew Research report. And based on that estimate, it would take an extra 42 days of work for women to earn what men did in 2020.

Joining us now to break down the six lies women are told about the gender pay gap is Yahoo Finance's contributor Mandi Woodruff-Santos, who we know is also co-host of Brown Ambition podcast, and Yahoo Finance's Karina Mitchell along for the ride on this one. So great to see you as always, Mandy. I want to start with the number one lie you outline. You say that college is the great equalizer, not so much. Talk to us about it.

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: Yeah. Let's just set aside the fact that there is incredible student loan debt holding so many college graduates down today. But for women, studies have shown that even when we get college degrees-- and by the way, women are more likely to go to college, graduate from college, and get better grades than men, and still we are plagued by the same pesky wage gap. So the fact that people think if you go to college it'll solve all of your issues as a woman in this country, it's completely false-- hate to break it to you.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And also, we have a graphic up on the screen right now. Your second one is choose a high-paying STEM job and you'll be fine. Pay is equal there. Don't worry about it.

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: You know, it is lonely being a female engineer. And that can hurt you when it comes to your pay as well. As researchers have found with other STEM careers, even if you choose the so-called right area of study or industry to get into, the pay gap will follow you as a woman in a lot of cases. And we haven't even mentioned the pay gap for Black women and women of color. I know at the top of the story you're talking about 84% is what women earn compared to men. But for Black and Brown women, it is even worse.

It'll take us even longer to reach pay parity. And that brings me to my third point, which is child care. And this is really going out to all the dual-income households, you know, with moms and dads. If you think that your partner is going to split child care 50-50-- and believe me, I'm a modern feminist woman who just launched a business. I have a toddler son and amazing husband who's always supported me, and even we do not master that elusive 50-50 child care split.

Your baby-- honestly, babies don't care about gender pay inequality. They want mama when they want mama, and if that means mom has to stay home from work to be with them when they're sick or stay home from work just to take on child care, especially during a pandemic, that is often falling on the shoulders of women. And that can truly help proliferate this gender wage gap.

KARINA MITCHELL: And then I want to go on to-- I know we have another full screen coming up as well. But the fourth point is paid parental leave is the answer, which is surprising to me because don't women take more parental leave anyway?

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: Yeah, absolutely. You know, only one in four Americans actually gets paid parental leave. So I can honestly see why people may think, Oh, well if we just give more families paid time off, then won't that help women feel like they've got the support and stay in the workforce? When actually, if you look at countries like Denmark where they have 12 months of paid parental leave for their families, there is still almost as large of a gender wage gap as there is in the US. So what's going on there?

And my point that I'm making here is the fact that when you actually give paid parental time off, it is the women who are more likely to take it, which means women are more likely to take time off from their careers to be that child care provider in the home. And that can hurt them long term. I mean, even if it's available to you, can you imagine what taking a year out of your career can do to your job prospects?

Jumping back into the workforce, and even if you're working for the same company, they may think you're not ready for a promotion. They may hold back a raise. So there's other ways that you can still be penalized even if you're given additional paid parental leave.

KARINA MITCHELL: And then the next point that you mentioned is that the gap doesn't exist for people with the same jobs and qualifications.

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: Yeah, so this is something I found. It's true. It's true when you actually look and control for things like location, job experience, qualifications, research has shown that the gender wage gap almost disappears-- almost, but it still exists. Even if a woman is earning $0.98 to every man's dollar, why are we OK with that?

That may sound like just a couple of cents, but honestly, when you look at a lifetime of earnings, it may mean that a woman has to work a full year longer than a man before she retires. And I find that completely unacceptable. Why are we OK with that?

KARINA MITCHELL: And the final point, which is the most galling to me, is that all we have to do is ask for more, like we don't do that.

MANDI WOODRUFF-SANTOS: Yeah, exactly. The reason I wrote this article and why I'm so passionate about it is because I really feel like it's taking down all of the reasons why. It's taking down all of those usual arguments that put the onus on women to fix the problem-- go to school, find a supportive spouse, find a job that gives you maternity leave. All of those things put the onus on our shoulders. And with this last one, the point that I'm making is that even if women ask for more, research has shown that we are less likely to get the raise. And that goes doubly so for Black women, women of color.

So all of the things that we're supposed to do to help ourselves get paid what we're worth don't actually work. And what really will help close the wage gap is when companies and when managers and the people who really have the power recognize that they have a contribution to make here. Recognize that they need to take these things seriously. Put systems and processes in place so that you're paying women equitably and fairly, and actually show that you care about wage equality. It cannot just be solved by women ourselves.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right. Mandi Woodruff-Santos, Yahoo Finance contributor, good stuff as always. Nice to see you.